According to a source close to your wife, who has just been positively identified with her mother, Lurpak is 40% off in Asda this week. The news emerged in a phone call that woke you from a dream about Little Mix playing netball at two minutes past six this morning, for fuck's sake.

'She just found the ads from the local paper last week and wanted us to know,' sighed your wife. Reports suggest that your wife is now in a bit of a bind because she does agree that her mother should stop phoning at the crack of bloody dawn and wouldn't have minded another half-hour in bed herself but is also honour-bound to take the side of anyone you slag off.

Analysts now agree that there is growing tension between the part of you that wants to say her sodding mother has been to your town seven times this year - and trust you, you have counted - and she should know there isn't a bastard Asda for miles around and the part that is inclined to shut up and just avoid getting the relationship lecture yet again. The likelihood of this conflict erupting with potentially catastrophic consequences has been exacerbated in the last few seconds by your wife's retort that she knows you've never liked her mother.

You have sensed that saying 'Yes, I told you that myself' is a trap but saying you might as well make some tea then in an aggrieved manner so as to avoid losing the battle while also leaving a silent-but-deadly as you exit the room, is not a viable exit strategy, especially given that your wife's last boyfriend would have got up and made the sodding tea already actually. He's a surgeon now, earning a fortune.

At press time, it remained unclear as to whether you would press your temporary moral advantage home at the risk of seeing if your wife really meant that she doesn't want you to go to her mother's at Christmas. Weighing up eating at someone else's expense and going to a match on Boxing Day match against not having to look over your shoulder while using the PC for three full days may need to be outsourced to a consultant.

'We don't even eat Lurpak,' you add on your way downstairs. 'Fucking hell.'